Haters, Bullies, and Trolls, Oh My!

“Haters, bullies and trolls are mean-spirited people trying to bloke block me so I can’t grow my cleaning company.”

We Ask a House Cleaner about haters and difficult people (i.e. the annoying competitor.)

Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru gives tips on haters. Bleep and block the adversary or mean maid. You can’t grow your cleaning business if you focus on the antagonist in your way. Speed cleaning your social media of opposers frees you from your enemies.

Today’s sponsors are Savvy Cleaner Training for house cleaners and maids. My Cleaning Connection – a resource hub for cool cleaning stuff. And HouseCleaning360.com where you can list your cleaning business and find leads.

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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer.

Question: How Do You Deal With Haters, Bullies, and Trolls?

How do you deal with haters? That’s an excellent question, and we’re going to cover that today.

Answer: Haters, Bullies, and Trolls, Oh My!

Now, in the house cleaning business, someone may tell you that you did a terrible job. Or that your work doesn’t pass, it’s easy to think you have haters.

You take their dissatisfaction personally because you did the work.

And it seems there’s negativity coming back towards. So, we’re going to talk about negativity and we’re going to talk about haters. In a minute you’ll learn the difference between haters and helpers.

Are They Haters or Helpers?

Quick sidebar and I’m speaking from experience. I have haters and helpers.

If you write a blog, or if you make a YouTube channel or you have a podcast, you’re going to get haters.

Now, I don’t know why sharing house cleaning tips you wouldn’t think you’d get lots of haters. But I do. Yay for me.

People say crummy things for no good reason. I haven’t done any harm to them. And they don’t bring any value by spreading crapola all over the place.

Isolate the Haters in Your Mind

When someone writes in, and they say, “Oh, this was a colossal waste of my time. I can’t believe that you wasted my time on this blog.” No one is making you read it. Move along. Go read something else, right?

It’s easy to get down on yourself and to be discouraged and to say, “Well, what did I do wrong? Why do these people hate me? What’s going on here?” And get all wrapped you in the emotional energies of other people’s insecurities.

But if the people consuming your content didn’t pay for your information their ideas are not helpful. They are hateful. So, put the haters in an imaginary box and lock the lid.

Helpers Guide You to A New Conclusion

When a customer contacts you and they give you feedback, that’s all it is, it’s feedback. It’s not hating or negativity. It’s just feedback. If the customer has paid money for you to come clean their house they may think they have a better way of doing your job. Sure, it’s annoying, but what if they are right?

Put these people in a box of possibility. When you are working and playing the tapes of customer conversations and ratings and reviews back in your head just ask yourself “What if?”

What if we did install a speed cleaning method? Or what if we started double checking our work?

What if we did give some money back for everything we missed? Would we miss fewer things?

Instead of looking at the customer as a hater, look at them as a helper. They are sparking ideas that might make your business better.

Helpers Advice Is Not Always Positive but Not Always Bad

Now, as long as I’ve been in business, I’ll tell you: I am a taskmaster.

I specialize in results. I am tough on myself, and no one will ever be tougher on me than I am.

If you’re like me, you are your own worst critic, and I think many of us are.

It’s really easy to internalize what other people say and take that to heart when in fact we are our own worst critic.

So, here’s how to deal with and handle the haters. First of all, realize you are your own worst enemy. I don’t know why, but that’s true for most people. You are your own worst enemy. That’s fine.

If you give yourself permission to be okay, other people can also give you permission to be okay.

You Don’t Have to Value Haters Opinions

Now, when somebody says that the hate me for whatever reason, or they try to discredit me, or they try to find fault with the work that I’ve done, guess what? That’s not new.

I’ve already gone through all those gyrations myself.

I’ve already had those thoughts, and those feelings, and those insecurities all on my own. I can do that all by myself.

I don’t need a whole host of other people telling me how inadequate I am, right?

So, when people give me that information, and I recommend this to you, accept it. Go, “I know, right?” Because you’ve already been there. You’ve already thought through this. You’ve already experienced it.

The information they’re giving you, it’s not new. They are not giving you revolutionary new ideas you’ve never considered. So, when someone comes to you with a bundle of hate, “I know, right?”

Accepting Haters is Like Catching a Ball – You’re in Control

Okay, here’s what happens when you accept your haters. And I’m not saying internalize the mockery, accepting it is different. When you accept it it’s like catching a ball? If you keep dodging it, they will keep targeting you. But if you square off and catch it, now you’re in control. Accepting their opposition diffuses it.

When you run into a bully or you encounter someone in your life that is hateful and full of negativity, just hear what they have to say and accept it. When you accept it, it completely diffuses it?

Take the Venom and Lock It Away

This is akin to taking away a smartphone from a disobedient teenager instead of grounding them. You don’t want to take it from them to use it yourself, you want to take it away as punishment.

Same rules apply to haters. If you showcase the hate right there in the open, it’s like leaving the cell phone on the front table. Now the teenager or someone else could snatch it and continue to use it.

Lock it up where it’s safe and it can’t hurt you.

Hate is Nothing but Ugly Insecurity

All right, the next thing that you have to realize is that a lot of times we internalize mean comments and hate because we ourselves are insecure. And we have our own fears, and we have our own anxieties.

But the reality is we don’t need another people’s approval. There are seven and a half billion people on the planet. If one or two or 20 of them don’t like you, you’re still going to be okay.

When someone comes to you and they’re like, “We hate you,”

“I know, right? I’m not for everybody, nor am I everybody’s flavor. I’m not here to win a popularity contest. It’s okay for you to hate me. You have your God-given rights and your free agency to your own opinions and your ideas. If you don’t want to like me, that’s fine.”

The world is full of people who can still like you, right? So, move on from that.

Don’t Engage with Haters

The next thing that I want to recommend is don’t engage.

When you engage with hateful people, what you’re doing is you’re sparking a fire between their insecurities and your own.

Let’s suppose someone comes to you (could be a customer or a coworker.) And they bring their insecurities, inadequacies, and their jealousies and point those towards you. Whoop daddy do.

But if you bring your own fears, now all you have is this weird, energetic-fueled fire of emotional, out of whack, whackadoodle stuff.

It’s like trying to have a sword fight with cooked ramen noodles.

Just accept and like catching the ball, take it out of play. If it’s not helpful, move along. Don’t let it be hurtful.

How About Haters on Social Media?

Now, when you are in a social media, and this happens a lot online and in online groups, there will be trolls and people that hate on you.

There will be people that have their opinions on how wrong you are. Again, you’re not there to win a popularity contest. You’re just sharing an opinion. If they don’t like your post, they can move along and go read something else.

If for some reason they decide to attack you, don’t engage. When you engage and fuel their drama it’s likely you’ll both get kicked out of the group, so don’t do that. Just walk away, move away, just block that person and delete.

Most Social Media and Even Websites Have Filters to Block Haters

Now, on all my social media accounts I have what I call bleep and block. As people come to my world, if they are profane, and they are or mean, and ugly, and bullies, I bleep them out.

I have a whole series of words that I filter conversations against. And if you use one of these words in a conversation with me, it’ll automatically flag your account. It will grab your email or your post and it will throw it over into a spam filter, and it somehow gets deleted.

I Don’t Even Have to Look at it

I’m the admin of a couple of Facebook groups. And if you are a bully, you will get blocked. Bullying, trolling, and madness is not helpful to anyone.

Once I block you, it’s not even personal. It’s not like, “Oh, hey, I hate Gina,” it’s, “Hey, this is bad behavior for this group.”

Block, and you can’t come back. That’s it. There’s no hate. There’s no animosity. No nothing. And since Gina is not paying for this service, as in she’s not a customer. Her insecurities are not worth the trouble of trying to recycle into being a helper. She’s just a hater – move along.

Some Customers Are Haters

Now, when a customer comes to you and they are mean and hateful, you can’t bleep and block them. But you can fire them and move along without a great deal of angst. Don’t poke the beehive on your way out the door. That could turn into ugly online ratings and reviews. Just catch the ball, set it aside and move along.

You Have to Protect Yourself from Haters

Every day when you wake up and you have to go to work, you have to love your job. If the people you work for make you hate your job and you’re not a good fit, you need to carefully end those relationships. You don’t need toxic people in your life.

Now, I should say a sidebar here. If the toxic person bully is in your family, you need to limit your access to those people.

That might mean that you don’t go over for Christmas dinner or that you don’t have a birthday party with them.

This is Your Life. Live, Laugh, Love – No Room for Haters

I tell you what, your life will get so much easier. It’ll be so much nicer. It’ll make your job go so much better and you will start enjoying life again.

But don’t live in fear of bullies, and trolls, and haters. Because there’s so much more to life than that. And that’s how I recommend you deal with them.

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